


The Sacred Heart

by fadebound (biqua)



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-22 11:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3726766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biqua/pseuds/fadebound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Act 2 and the Qunari attack, Eliza examines the amulet she received from the Grey Warden Alistair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sacred Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This happens in a Romanced Warden Alistair state. Kayti Cousland is The Warden, although her name doesn't show up in this fic.

By the time Hawke got home, it was already dark. She entered the house expecting the front rooms to be empty, Bodan and Sandal having already headed to their rooms, but Anders was waiting there. His back was to her, and he had picked up an object that had been left on her writing desk.

“You’re not planning to leave copies of that manifesto all over my house again, are you?” she teased, walking up to him. Anders turned around with a start, his expression relaxing when he saw her.

“You would think I would be used to being snuck up on by now,” he breathed, falling into the chair in front of the desk.

“What were you looking at?” Hawke asked, nodding to his closed hand. He held up the hand and opened it. “Isn’t that the pendant that Warden gave me?” she asked. “During the…kerfuffle with the Qunari?”

Anders gave her a quizzical look. “Kerfuffle?” he asked.

“Do you have a better name?”

“Not really,” he admitted, looking back at the necklace.

“So,” Hawke said, pulling over a nearby chair, “what is it about the pendant? Is it the Wardens?”

“This,” Anders held the necklace so it caught the firelight. “It belonged to the Warden-Commander.”

“You know, you never told me anything about your time with the Wardens. Except that they made you get rid of Ser Pounce-a-Lot,” she added.

Anders smiled, and Hawke felt herself smile as well. It was rare to get anything resembling happiness from the mage as of late. “Yes, well, this belonged to the Commander who gave me Ser Pounce-a-Lot in the first place,” he said fondly. “She said she found the poor thing out in the rain.”

Hawke bristled involuntarily at the female pronoun. Why was she jealous? “So what does the pendant have to do with that?” she asked, maybe harsher than she meant to. Anders didn’t seem to notice.

“This was her oath,” he said simply.

“Her oath?” Hawke repeated. “Like, ‘I swear I won’t leave kittens out in the rain?’”

“When you join the Wardens, everyone who… all the new Wardens receive a pendant similar to this, to remind us of the ones who… we lost along the way.” Hawke recognized the self-editing that was due to Warden secrets, so she didn’t push. She knew that Anders felt uncomfortable breaking his word, even to her. He continued, “None of us took that as seriously as she did. There were always other Wardens, and she was always recruiting more. There were enough that we never felt the troubles of the Order like she did.”

“She sounds like a bundle of laughs,” Hawke drolled.

“Oh, no, she really wasn’t all the downcast,” Anders replied hastily. “In fact, you two would have gotten along well. I left the Wardens not long after she was forced to Orlais. The replacement the Order sent was…” Anders trailed off, his expression growing cold.

“So how long were you with the Wardens?” Hawke asked, trying to get as much information as possible before he stopped talking.

“Not long,” Anders said, “Six months, maybe? No more than that. The Commander recruited me not long after the Blight.”

“Wait,” Hawke said, finally catching up. “Was your Commander by any chance the Hero of Ferelden?”

“You didn’t know?” Anders asked.

“Well, you never told me!” Hawke defended.

“I thought it was obvious,” he said with a shrug.

“Some of us haven’t been to Ferelden since the Blight,” Hawke said. “How did you wind up being recruited by the Hero of Ferelden, anyway?”

“Uh, well, you see, there were some darkspawn,” Anders started.

“Naturally,” Hawke deadpanned. “How else do you meet a Warden?”

“You walk into their clinic?”

“Fair enough. Continue.”

“There was this incident. And I, uh, winded up in the Templars’ care. We stopped for the night at Vigil’s Keep, the Wardens’ fortress in Amaranthine, and they were planning to drag me back to the Circle in the morning. Then, of course, we were attacked by darkspawn, and I don’t mean one or two, I mean a whole horde. Enough to overrun a castle full of soldiers and Wardens. The Templars were killed, but I managed to escape,” Hawke raised an eyebrow at this, but Anders ignored her, “and I ran into the Warden-Commander. Or, rather, she ran into me after forcing her way into the keep. Since she seemed to be doing so well, I figured she was my best chance of getting out of that mess alive, and we managed to clear the Keep. And when I say we, I mean she did. Somehow, she was so impressed with me that she forced the Right of Conscription to keep me from the Templars. Or maybe she just needed all the recruits she could get, seeing as she was the only one to make it out of the Keep alive.”

“And that’s it?” Hawke said. “You just, became a Warden?”

“Well, there’s more to it than that,” Anders said evasively, fidgeting with the necklace. “There’s a ceremony. And stuff.”

“If every Warden gets one of those,” Hawke said, pointing at the pendant, “then where’s yours?”

“I threw mine away when I left the Wardens.”

“How can you tell that this one’s the Warden-Commander’s then?”

“Here, look,” Anders said, holding the pendant out to her upside down.

“What is it?” Hawke asked. “Is this writing?” She touched one of the odd squiggles and it suddenly expanded to read  _Riordan_.

“It’s enchanted,” Anders explained. “She said that she recorded the name of every fallen Warden that she knew on it.” Hawke moved her finger down slightly, and new names appeared:  _Lorna, Darriul, Mhairi._

“I met her, briefly,” Anders said, looking over at the name. “She was in my Joining, but…” He looked over into the fire. Hawke stared for a minute, but he seemed to not want to continue. She scrolled through the names, mostly unfamiliar, until something caught her eye near the end.

_Anders_

_Justice_

“Hey,” she said quietly. Anders looked over.

“Yeah, I saw,” he whispered. “I don’t know what they told her. I’m almost surprised she added Justice, to the list, seeing as he wasn’t really a Warden. Although I guess I shouldn’t be, knowing her.”

“Why…?” Hawke started, not knowing how to finish.

“I guess she thought we were dead,” Anders said simply. “I haven’t seen her since she was transferred, not since I left. The Wardens could have told her anything. They probably thought that she would try to find me if they told her the truth. Maybe she would have. She was so protective of her friends; I doubt she would have just let me leave. Maybe I wouldn’t have left. But then I never would have met you, Hawke,” he said, looking her in the eye, “and I don’t know what I would have done then.”

“Anders,” she said, leaning in to him, “there is not a day gone by when I’m not glad you came to Kirkwall. Everything that’s happened, everything we had to come through to get here, it was all worth it.”

“I know,” he whispered, breaking her gaze. “Sometimes, I just wonder if you would have been happier if I had never left.”

“Of course not!” Hawke replied.

“You say that, but it can never end well for us. Not while the Templars are after me, not while the Circle exists.”

“Well,” Hawke said, “I’ll just have to stall the Templars a little longer,” and kissed him.


End file.
